


Too Quiet

by Ebhenah



Series: Klancemas 2018 [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, Hot Cocoa, Klance Future Family, Laith, M/M, Married Klance, Pala-fam, klance, klance kids, klancemas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 15:22:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16813318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ebhenah/pseuds/Ebhenah
Summary: Lance and Keith have a rough morning courtesy of their four children.Written for the Klancemas event by @MonthlyKlance on tumblrKlancemas 2018“Too Quiet”Dec 2: Hot Cocoa(A future Klance-Family Fic)





	Too Quiet

He should have known better. He really should have. He was from a big family, the youngest of five kids. That ALONE should have been enough. He also had tons of nieces and nephews- in blood and in spirit. On top of that, he had a solid decade of parenting under his belt.

So, there was really no excuse.

None.

When he’d heard QUIET giggling coming from the kitchen, before the morning alarm went off, he should have known he was waking up to SOME kind of cleaning nightmare.

Lance could only claim temporary insanity caused by actually sleeping through the entire night without interruption as justification for not immediately cluing in that the sweet sound of his children laughing was anything but a good thing. He had a set of TWINS for God’s sake! Twins!

But no. He’d stirred, heard their little bell-like giggles, smiled and snuggled back into the soft pillows and the warm security of his husband’s strong arms.

Although, to be fair- it was kind of hard to be anything but sleepily content when he was half buried under a dreaming and extra snuggly Keith, who had just last night gotten home from a week- as in seven ENTIRE days and nights- of dealing with Blade of Marmora business on some weirdly named top secret base on the other side of the damn universe.

So… you know… there was that.

But, he still should have known better. It wasn’t until Keith had gone unnaturally still and whispered, “are they ALL happy? At the same time?” that reality had come crashing in. Because, as any parent can tell you, there are very, very few things that would warrant FOUR siblings all being happy at the same time. Christmas morning was one. The arrival of grandparents bearing gifts might do it. The arrival of the last resort, all-too-lenient babysitter (*cough cough* PIDGE *cough cough*) had a CHANCE of bringing such unilateral joy.

The return of a parent after a week? Maybe in some households, but not in the household of two Paladins, that’s for sure.

Then.

Ohhhhh then….

THEN they’d heard the worst possible thing any parent can hear following a giggling child in another room.

A sound that made blood run cold and sleepy eyes fly open more surely than a fire alarm.

“Shhhhhhh…”

They both bolted out the the bed, grabbing robes (because HELLO, reunited after an entire week meant no pjs) and hastily donning them before racing out the door and down the stairs to the common living areas of their quarters.

Keith got to the entry of the kitchen first and skidded to a stop. He didn’t even SAY anything.

That was bad.

There was a chorus of four, far too alert, FAR too cheerful and cute sounding little voices saying ‘good morning!”

That was really bad.

Bad enough that Lance actually stopped and took a bracing breath- that turned into a silent prayer when he heard the crowning jewel of ‘it’s even worse than you thought’... the sickly sweet voice of their only daughter sing-songing “we missed you, Daddy!”

What did they do?!? What did they do to his kitchen??

Thace was ten. Talia and Rai were seven. Kashi was three and a half. They’d been getting their own cereal and milk for breakfast on weekends for a while now without a problem (that’s a parental milestone no one tells you about, but damn if it isn’t his personal favorite!). There’s usually some minor squabbling about who gets which bowl or whatever, but nothing that should warrant Talia laying on the little girl charm!

“I… missed... you... guys... too,” Keith said, each word falling from his lips like he’d forgotten how to speak. “Ummm… what are you doing?”

He couldn’t tell? Oh God! Keith was looking RIGHT AT THEM and he COULDN’T TELL what they were doing!

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmm,” Talia again- oh dear lord, it never boded well when Thace let his little sister speak for the group. It meant he was banking on her cuteness and charm to win them leeway. “Kashi wanted hot cocoa?”

“Uh. Huh. Don’t move.” Keith turned away from the kitchen and faced him. “Lance, babe… I’m sure it looks worse than it is.”

“Cocoa?” he squeaked. “Is my entire kitchen covered in cocoa?”

Keith closed his eyes and nodded once.

“Have… have you ever tried to CLEAN cocoa powder?” he asked, his voice dangerously high.

“No, but…”

“It’s IMPOSSIBLE,” Lance insisted. “It either puffs away and makes more of a mess, or it just keeps thinning out into more and more cocoa water… it’s worse than rice cereal!”

“We’ll split the job,” Keith offered, “it won’t be that bad.”

“Split it? Split it HOW?”

“Well,” Keith glanced back into the kitchen and swallowed and that was the final straw for Lance. He pushed past his husband and got all of three steps into the kitchen before his body locked up on him and he made a noise he’d only ever heard his mother make.

“The CEILING?!?!” he gasped, “the tallest of you is FOUR FEET NOTHING! How?!? HOW?!?! Keith! It looks like Shiro was trying to BAKE IN HERE!”

“Lance, it’s not that bad,” Keith soothed.

“My children look like coal miners!” He screeched, pointing at the kids, who were all thoroughly coated in cocoa dust, “look at them! Just LOOK at my babies!”

“Lance,” Keith tried again, catching Lance’s hands in his own, trying to literally rein him in a bit.

That did not work.

Instead, without the ability to make grand flourishes, Lance just… lost his grasp on the English language completely. His eyes flew wide and he started ranting about the mess, the waste of difficult to find and expensive cocoa, the nightmare of trying to get those NEW CHRISTMAS pajamas clean ever again. Rapid-fire Cubano fell from his lips, heavily punctuated with eyerolls, and teeth sucking, and head weaves (that would have made more sense if he could have moved his arms), and distinctly Cuban noises of irritation and disbelief.

Keith kept nodding along at appropriate intervals, occasionally adding an “I know” or “yes, of course’ but mostly just letting Lance run out of steam… which took a while. Thankfully, all of the children knew not to interrupt this process and just stood there, watching their fathers. By the time Keith pulled Lance into a hug, and kissed him sweetly, he had some semblance of a plan in mind.

“Right, this room is a disaster and we are NOT making Papi clean it up, are we?” he asked his children, trying to sound stern but not mean.

Their kids were smart enough to recognize that there was one and only one acceptable answer to this question and Lance relaxed a tiny, almost imperceptible amount, at the chorus of “no, Daddy.”

“Papi is going to take a nice, long shower,” Keith continued, “while we… I don’t know… power hose? Sand blast? This whole room. Nobody move a muscle until I get back. I mean it- be statues!”

He dragged Lance out of the kitchen and up to the bathroom, and every time Lance opened his mouth to say ANYTHING, Keith silenced him with a kiss. “Take a shower. As long as you want. Until we run out of hot water, I don’t care. Just… let me deal with the kids. You’ve been on your own with them all week. It’s just a mess. I can handle a mess. You, relax. Consider this your morning off. Okay?”

“Keith, I can’t ask you to handle all that-”

“Stop it. You aren’t. I’m tagging you out. I’ve got this. I love you. Take a shower.”

“I love you, too,” he sighed, glancing at the door. “I can help…”

“No. You just transformed into your grandmother right in front of me. Now, I love your Abuela and all, but it’s not your best look. I would MUCH prefer to spend the rest of the day with the man I fell in love with and our four, very precious, very… trying… kids. So… shower for you. Kitchen duty for the rest of us. No arguments.”

Lance sighed, “my Abuela? Really? You couldn’t have said my mother?”

“Your mother doesn’t suck her teeth like that when she’s mad.” He grinned at him, and his expression was so earnest and his eyes so full of love that Lance just sagged in relief.

“Get pictures,” Lance sighed, reaching over to turn the water on in the shower.

“I will,” he promised, cradling Lance’s face tenderly and kissing him again, “I love you.”

“I don’t deserve you,” Lance whispered, “cocoa is such a nightmare.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“God, I love you, you clueless, clueless man.”

By the time Lance was out of the shower- which was, admittedly, the longest shower he’d taken since that time he’d gotten knocked into some kind of sulfurous mud on a mission- he could smell an ACTUAL breakfast. Eggs, bacon… toast, maybe? He dried off and got dressed, and he couldn’t decide if he was giving them more time to clean, or just putting off the horror of seeing how much work was STILL left for him in the kitchen.

Keith headed him off at the bottom of the stairs, turning him towards the living room with a tray. “Nope- we aren’t done. You sit in here and eat.”

“Keith, I’ve calmed down,” he protested, “you don’t have to…”

“I do. I am. The kids are pretty much finished cleaning everything, but there is a special surprise they want to give you before I go hose them down. So, sit. Eat.”

He did as he was told, because in all honesty, the longer he could go without seeing the kitchen, the happier he was. The lights of the Christmas tree in the corner of the room blinked on and off to the sound of carols and the combination of light and music was soothing. The bookshelves were filled with framed Christmas artwork the kids had done over the years- handprint Reindeer, footprint trees, pompoms and glitter glued to construction paper ornaments, and more. “Baby’s First Christmas” stockings with the names and years written in glitter glue hung on the wall of the stairwell, right in his line of sight. They were growing up too fast. The other night Kashi had pushed him out of his room without a story because ‘stories were for babies’, and Kashi was very insistent that he was ‘big’ and ‘not babies!’.

He kind of missed having a baby in the house. He didn’t miss the lack of sleep, or the diapers, or trying to decipher what might be causing the screaming at three am when everything SHOULD be fine… but he missed other parts. The way that their heads smelled. How Talia used to pat the side of his face as she dozed off on his chest. How Rai slept with his arm flung over his eyes like a tiny little drama queen. The way Thace would get all indignant if he stopped moving for even an instant. When Kashi would growl at Kosmo and then crack up laughing.

Maybe he should mention that to Keith? Was he nuts? After the wake-up call they’d had that morning, how crazy did he have to be to be pining over babies? Or was it just that BABIES couldn’t manage to get cocoa powder onto the CEILING?

He sighed, turning his attention back to the tray in front of him. His breakfast was Keith’s go-to: scrambled eggs, bacon, toast with jam, coffee and oj. It wasn’t fancy or gourmet, but it was tasty and filling, and Keith had even remembered to put the tabasco sauce, salt and pepper on the tray for him.

“Papi?” It was Thace, still covered in cocoa, although he looked like he’d been dusted off, at least. “Are you finished?”

“Not quite, bud, but almost,” he said, his voice soft.

“Are you still upset?”

He shook his head, “no chiquito, I’m okay now.”

Thace smiled at him, and Lance felt any lingering upset melt away. Most of the time, Thace looked like his family, with his dark skin and blue eyes and wavy brown hair, but there was this one smile… he hardly ever saw it… but it was 100% Keith’s smile and thank God the kid couldn’t seem to do it on command, because Lance was completely helpless to resist it. “We’re sorry about the mess,” Thace added, “but Daddy said that if you were almost done breakfast you might want our surprise?”

“Sure bud,” he replied, “I’d love your surprise.”

“Okay!” He turned away and Lance could hear him ‘whispering’ instructions to the others. They came into the room in a little cluster, Thace almost herding them to the couch.

“Daddy was gonna make Thace carry it, cuz its hot, but I proved I could do it,” Rai said proudly, slowly holding out a mug.

“It’s hot cocoa,” Thace explained, “he taught me how to make it- the right way.”

“I have marshmallows!” Talia chimed in, “cuz they’re the bestest in cocoa!”

“CANADAY CANE!” yelled Kashi, holding out a mostly intact candy cane. There was a crack in the curve and it made the thing rattle inside its plastic wrapper as Kashi shook it excitedly.

“Awww… you guys…” He melted. He just… literally turned to goo. They were all so sweet and adorable and perfect- even if they still looked like coal miners. Carefully, he took the mug from Rai, setting it on the coffee table and then the marshmallows from Talia and the poor, broken candy cane from Kashi. “Thank-you.”

They tripped all over each other to say ‘you’re welcome’ first, and barring that, then the loudest. Talia was the first to add ‘I love you, Papi’, but the others were barely a breath behind her. Kashi was about to launch himself at him in a hug when Keith caught him by the back of his pj top. “Oh, no you don’t! Papi JUST got out of the shower- you look like you chased Santa down the chimney. No hugs until after a bath. Come on, upstairs… let’s get you lot presentable.”

It was nearly an hour later, after Lance had finished the last of the breakfast, and the cocoa, and the candy cane, AND Kosmo had returned from where ever he’d blinked off to when the cocoa had started to fly, when Keith dropped down onto the couch beside Lance and pulled him up against his chest. Lance smiled up at him and pressed a kiss to his unshaven jaw.

“I love our kids,” Keith sighed, “but sometimes… I think four might have been a mistake…”

“Mmm,” Lance hummed, thinking about the disaster in the kitchen and the ruined pajamas and the fact that no matter how thorough Keith had been, he was going to be finding little streaks and dustings of cocoa over his floors and counters for MONTHS. “Yeah… you’re right. Four was a mistake…” He smiled up at his husband, “we should have five.”


End file.
